


Four Winters: I

by Linden



Series: Four Winters [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 16:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/pseuds/Linden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein John is wounded, Sam is panicky, and everyone's snowed in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

February 1996

It hadn’t been Sam’s first real hunt, not by about ten months and sixteen states, but it had been the first where everything had so completely and rapidly gone to shit.

And it shouldn’t have, Dean knew, it _shouldn’t_ have, because they’d had everything they damn well should’ve needed. They’d had every scrap of lore they could rustle up on the wraith wolf, from its habits to its weaknesses to its den. They’d had maps for the three-day hike through the lower mountains; they’d had provisions for six days; they’d had eighteen rune-carved silver bullets and three consecrated guns. They’d had a goddamn _plan_. But the weather had turned too fast, their visibility had gone to hell, and the wolf had had a mate—a _mate_ , which had come snarling out of nowhere to slam into their father—and so they’d ended here: John barely conscious in the back seat, Sam leaning on his ribs to keep the bleeding down, and Dean frantically searching the roadside for the turn off his brother swore he’d seen between the eighth and ninth mile markers on the way up, three days and half a lifetime ago. _It was a driveway, Dean, a gravel driveway; there’s gotta be something there if there’s a driveway—_

He almost missed it, in the snow and the dark, and damn near put the Impala into a pine tree as he fishtailed through the turn, but a quarter-mile later he could have kissed his freakishly observant little brother senseless, because suddenly the headlights were sweeping over a cabin—a small, snugly built, honest-to-God _house_ , whose drive was empty and windows dark, whose garage doors swung open easily once Dean unloaded three bullets into the lock and wrenched it clear. By the time the wind was rising to a howl, they had the car in the garage and their father and the suture kit in the cabin, and the snap-hum of the kitchenette lights as Sam found and flipped the main switch on the breaker box was possibly the sweetest sound Dean had ever heard. He could see a bed through the nearest door off the hall and staggered toward it, his father’s arm across his shoulders. John had both lips bitten between his teeth, but soft whuffs of pain came out with every breath. Dean left a bloody handprint on the wall when he smacked the light switch on.

‘Find the thermostat,’ he told his brother, as he eased their father out of his jacket and down on top of the covers. Shaking, Sam stood staring down at John, his eyes wide, fine tremors suddenly visible along his jaw. ‘Sam!’ Dean snapped, and he blinked and vanished back out into the hallway. Dean pulled out his ankle knife to cut through their father’s shirts, pulled them carefully open, cut through the pressure bandage he’d gotten on him in the woods as Sam came back. He got one look at John’s torso in good light and pushed Sam back out the bedroom door, with instructions to lay salt lines and make sure the water heater had gone on with the furnace, to bring in their weapons and bring in their bags, because Jesus Christ, the kid didn’t need to see this. His father looked up at him, glassy-eyed, as he swept the nightstand clear with one arm. He unpacked the med kit, competent and quick, set out what he needed, yanked off his belt to put between his father’s teeth, met his father’s eyes for one brief, agonized moment, and then poured holy water into the ugly gashes along his ribs. There was froth and there was smoke, and there was the noxious smell of flesh burning; there was a terrible, steady whine spilling from his father’s mouth, where his lips were white around the leather. When John passed out, and stayed that way as Dean followed up the holy water with peroxide until the wounds were clear of dirt, Dean thought he might, someday, consider believing that there was also a merciful god. He paused for a minute to steady his hands, then threaded a needle and got swiftly and carefully to work: knot, pull, knot, snip; knot, pull, knot, snip; knot, pull, knot, snip. Knot. Pull. Knot. Snip. He had three of the four gashes sewn neatly up before Sam came back, with what looked like the last of the really good painkillers they had from San Antonio clutched hesitantly in his hand.

‘Gonna be fine, Sammy,’ Dean said steadily, before his brother had a chance to panic over the blood on the bed. ‘That the Demerol or Vicodin?’

‘D-Demerol—’

‘Good. Leave it on the nightstand and go find some clean sheets and blankets, okay? Hand towel and a wet washcloth, too, and get some salt for the window in here.’

‘Dean—’

‘Sam.’ Dean glanced up at him again, briefly, from his work; the kid’s hazel eyes were huge in a too-white face. ‘Sammy, listen to me. Everything’s gonna be fine, okay? Dad’s okay. I promise, I really do. Now go.’

Sam went.

Dean finished stitching up their father to the sound of the tap running down the hall, of closets being frantically opened and slammed shut. He’d smeared a thin layer of vaseline across his father’s wounds and was reaching for the tape and gauze when he realized that the man under his hands was conscious again, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. ‘Hey, Dad.’ His voice was very nearly steady. ‘Welcome back.’

It took John a moment to get his mouth to work. ‘ . . . dead?’

‘You? No, sir.’ Dean took the half-amused, half-irritated glare he got in response as a good sign, quirked a smile at him as he taped together six thick squares of gauze, then taped the gauze to his father’s ribs. ‘The bitch? Yeah. Sammy put a bullet between the fucker’s eyes from fifty paces. Remind me not to piss him off anymore when he’s packing.’

John made a sound that might have been a laugh, had so much pain not been bound up in it. It took him a moment to find his voice again. ‘. . . he all right?’

‘A little freaked. You were pretty much touch and go there in the car. Got you patched up now, got the poison burned out, but you lost a lot of blood, and no way we can get off the mountain in this weather.’ Dean swallowed, forced his voice not to quaver. ‘Think you’re gonna be all right?’

John nodded, once. ‘Fever’s broken,’ he managed. ‘Can feel it.’ He took a shallow, careful breath. ‘Pain’s a bitch, though.’

‘Yeah, well, those ain’t chicken scratches, Dad.’

‘How much blood?’

‘Quart, maybe a quart and a half. Sam pretty much sat on you in the car.’

‘Be fine, then. There whiskey?’

Dean flashed a grin at him. ‘There’s Demerol,’ he replied. ‘Much more fun. Here.’ He was lifting John’s head enough for him to swallow one of the small white pills with a slug of holy water when Sam came in, arms full of soft flannel and wool and salt, a wet washcloth thrown over his shoulder. Dean got their father up on his feet long enough for Sam to whip off the ruined blanket and sheets and put down clean ones, propped him up against the dresser to strip off the ruins of his shirts and wipe the worst of the blood and dirt from his face and hands while Sam filled the window ledges with salt. Their father managed a weary smile for each of them as they eased him back onto the fresh sheets.

‘You still have that Gatorade in your bag?’ Dean asked his brother, as he bent to swing John’s legs carefully up onto the bed, and Sam was back in a minute with the bottle of it. Dean got an arm beneath their father’s shoulders and got him to sip most of it down before the Demerol started to really kick in, fifteen or so minutes later; five minutes after that John was asleep. Dean rested a hand gently on his chest as Sam tugged off his boots. He still looked like seven kinds of hell, but his heartbeat was steady under Dean’s fingers, and his skin was already cooler, the fever draining with no poison to hold onto. ‘Jesus Christ, Dad,’ he muttered, and blew out a long, uneven breath as he pulled the sheet and blankets up over him, tucked them carefully around his shoulders. He kept his back to Sam until he’d gotten his own face in order.

‘You get the salt lines down?’ he asked, turning.

Sam was looking at their father’s face. He said nothing.

‘Sammy,’ Dean said gently, cupping a hand around his brother’s cheek, and wide hazel eyes snapped up to his. ‘Salt down?’

‘Y-yeah,’ Sam managed. He cleared his throat, ran a shaky hand through his hair. ‘Yeah. Front door and the one from the kitchen into the garage. Three windows in the living room, one in the bathroom, one in the kitchen. And I put a ring around the hearth.’

‘Awesome.’ He rubbed a thumb across his brother’s cheekbone, said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘You all right, little brother?’

‘Yeah.’ That answer might have been less obvious a lie if Dean hadn’t been able to feel Sam’s jaw trembling against his palm. ‘I’m fine.’

Dean looked at him a moment longer, then slid his hand to the back of his brother’s neck and pulled him into a brief, hard hug. Sam’s hands fisted desperately in his shirt. ‘'S gonna be okay,’ Dean said, quietly, rubbing at his back, then thumped him once between the shoulder blades. ‘C’mon. Hot shower, and then bed. Move it.’ He steered him down the hall to the bathroom, and if he kept Sam tucked closer to him than he usually would have, and if Sam leaned into his side a little on the way, well, the hallway was pretty narrow, after all. He went to their bags to get the last of the clean clothes and left them on the sink once Sam was in the shower, got a shot of whiskey down him when he re-emerged into the hall, and bundled him without protest into the other bed in their father’s room. Sliding his ankle knife beneath Sam’s pillow, he pulled the heavy down comforter he’d found in the living room up under his chin (and Jesus, were they ever taking that blanket with them when they left), and flipped off the lights. Sam flailed a hand loose to latch onto him. There wasn’t much strength in his grip; he was already half asleep, and fading fast. He said nothing, only looked up at Dean with liquid, frightened eyes.

Dean smoothed his hair back off his face. ‘I’m just going to get some shit done in the living room, Sammy,’ he told him softly. ‘Everything’s okay. All right? Dad’s okay. Wolves are down. Just get some sleep.’ He unthreaded thin fingers gently from around his wrist, tucked Sam’s hand back under the blanket, and then on impulse bent to kiss his brother’s forehead, something he hadn’t done since Sam had turned ten and decided that kissing was silly. ‘You did good tonight, kiddo,’ he whispered, and Sam’s eyes were already fluttering shut. ‘You did really, really good. Now go to sleep.’

 

***

Dean waited until he was certain that Sam and his father were sleeping soundly, and then he gave himself five minutes to fall apart quietly in the kitchenette—which he felt was really reasonable, when you considered the kind of evening he’d had. It took him another three afterwards to pull himself back together, and then he slid down the wall and just sat for a spell, head tipped back against the cabinets. He looked longingly at the sofa in the living room, with its big puffy pillows and another down comforter folded across its back. _I just need, like, a week of sleep. A week of sleep, and I will be okay._ After another moment or two he scrubbed a hand over his wet face and went looking for his thermos, and the last of the cold coffee it held. Because they had power now, yes, but there was no telling whether they would have power later, and as they were clearly not going to be going anywhere for a few days, he had work to do before it maybe went. He started with two loads of laundry, because it was going to seriously suck to sit around in filthy clothes in the dark, and laid a fire in the hearth, because that was always easier to do when you could, you know, see. There was a pile of firewood in a rack beneath the window, but he hauled several more armloads of logs in from the garage anyway, and then went back out to mop up the drying blood in the car. Back inside, he checked the locks, and the windows, and the salt lines; checked their weapons, which Sam had left by the door with their bags; checked on Sam and their father. Checked the refrigerator, which was empty, and the cabinets, which were, thank Christ, full, stocked with a wide variety of canned goods that would be enough to feed the three of them easily for a week—including friggin’ _peaches in syrup_ , and Dean almost woke Sam up to tell him, because God knew the crazy kid thought those things were the second coming of Christ. He rummaged among the shelves for a minute, considering, then pulled out a bag of rice and lit a burner to make a big pot of it; rice would be easy enough to heat up with some of the canned beans or chili over the hearth fire tomorrow if the stove was out. While it was cooking he went to bundle his father’s shirts and the ruined sheets and blanket from the bedroom into a trash bag, because that mess wasn’t anything Sam needed to wake up to in the morning, and tossed the bag into the trunk of the Impala, because the shirts were a dead loss and it wasn’t worth trying to get out stains that were never gonna wash. They could toss them at the first dumpster they came across whenever they got out of here. His watch told him it was 10:30 when he came back inside, and he was so bone-tired that he could scarcely see. He turned the heat off under the rice, pulled a clean tee shirt and sweatpants out of the dryer, staggered into the shower to scrub off dirt and blood with the last of the hot water, rinsed it off with cold, left the small nightlight on over the sink so that Sam could see if he got up in the middle of the night. Checked one more time on his father, listened to the steady rise and fall of his brother’s breath. Padded back into the living room, loaded a shotgun with salt and a pistol with iron and silver, left them in arms’ reach on the coffee table, and then wrapped himself up in the blanket, threw himself shivering onto the couch, and went out like a light.

 

He woke maybe two hours later to Sam trying to crawl onto the couch with him in the dark. This operation was going about as well as might have been expected, given that the couch was barely big enough for Dean and that Sam was a bit more than five feet of sharp elbows and bony knees. ‘Hey,’ Dean murmured, shifting. In the dim, dim light from the bath he could just make out his brother, in the tee shirt and sweatpants that had once been his own, both loose on the kid’s skinny frame. ‘You okay?’

‘Woke up,’ Sam whispered shakily. ‘There room?’

There absolutely and very clearly was not room, even if their father hadn’t made his feelings about them still sharing a bed abundantly clear two years ago. ‘Yeah, Sammy, course there is,’ he said instead, holding out an arm. ‘C’mere.’

Over the course of the next thirty seconds Dean ended up with two elbows to the ribs and a knee in his groin, and a wrenched shoulder when he kept Sam from falling off the couch, but they managed to settle together comfortably enough, Sam stretched out half on the couch and half on his brother, with his head tucked securely beneath Dean’s chin and one hand fisted in his shirt, Dean’s arms warm around him. They lay quietly for a little while, both of them pretending that Sam wasn’t trembling. Dean cupped one hand around the back of his brother’s head, let his fingers slide into the mess of silken hair, rubbed gently at his scalp. It was how he remembered their mother soothing him as a toddler, whenever he’d been frightened or sad; he had never forgotten the sweetness of it, the warmth of knowing that he was safe and loved.

When Sam finally spoke, his voice was no more than a breath broken across his brother’s throat in the dark. ‘Dean?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Dean, if . . .’

His voice trailed off into nothing. Dean waited. Sam plucked at his shirt like some overgrown kitten, but said nothing else. Dean finally poked him in the ribs. ‘Use your words, kiddo.’

He felt Sam’s hand tighten in his tee. ‘Dean, if . . . if Dad had died,’ he whispered, finally. ‘What would we have done?’

‘If—Sam, that’s—’

‘I thought he was going to,’ he said in a soft frightened rush, as though that explained everything, and perhaps it did. ‘When—in the car. When he was bleeding, I thought he was going to die. What if he had? Or what if he does, the next time we—’

‘Don’t think about shit like that.’

‘I _do_ think about shit like—’

‘Yeah, well, I’m telling you to knock it off. ‘S not gonna happen.’

Sam’s voice was wretched. ‘You don’t know that.’

‘Yeah I do, Sammy—’

‘You don’t,’ he insisted, breath hitching. ‘You don’t know that. And you always . . . on hunts you always do the same things Dad does now; he never makes you stay back anymore; and if you—Dean, what am I supposed to do if you. . .’ His voice broke.

‘Sammy,’ Dean said, gently.

‘You can’t,’ Sam whispered, slim shoulders shaking. ‘You can’t, you can’t, you _can’t_ , Dean, please—’

‘Shhhhhhh, shh shh. Sam. Jesus. Sammy. Hey. Hey.’ He felt his shirt dampening under Sam’s cheek, and closed his eyes; for all he liked to tease his little brother about being a girl, Sam almost never cried, which was why it hit Dean like a wrecking ball to the chest when he did. ‘Sammy, it’s okay,’ he said softly, helplessly. ‘It’s okay. ‘M here, all right? I’m right here.’ He wasn’t sure whether Sam were weeping because he was exhausted, or afraid for their father, or afraid for him, or simply because of their exhausting, fearful, fucked-up lives, but he held him close while the kid cried himself out, slim light body tense and wracked again with shivers, as though live wires were threaded around his bones. ‘Sorry,’ Sam finally whispered. His breath puffed across Dean’s skin in soft, uneven pants. ‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t—I don’t—’

‘S all right, kiddo. Been a long couple of days.’

Sam seemed to think that wiping his wet face and snotty nose on Dean’s shirt was an appropriate response to that, but Dean decided he would smack him around for that infraction at some other time. ‘Sammy, I want you to listen to me for a minute, all right?’ he said instead. ‘You listenin’?’

Sam nodded, once.

‘Dad’s not dying.’

‘But—’

‘Shh. I said listen. Dad’s not dying. I’m not dying. You can’t worry about that. You can’t. It’s like . . . it’s like worrying about the sky fallin’ down, okay? Won’t happen. Not ever.’

‘But how do you know?’ Sam whispered. ‘Dean, you don’t _know_ —’

‘I do know,’ Dean replied. ‘Of course I know. Dad’s . . . Dad’s the best hunter on the planet, right? And we’re his _sons_. You think there’s anything out there that the three of us can’t handle together? Seriously? Yeah, tonight was not so good. Actually tonight was pretty much shit. Okay. But Sammy.’ He tugged at his brother’s hair, very gently. ‘Sammy, no one died.’

Sam’s breath hitched, softly, against his neck.

‘We could barely see, we could barely hear, we found twice the monsters we thought we were dealing with—you think it gets much worse than that?’ Dean knew it did, knew it could always get very much worse than that, but Sam didn’t, and he didn’t need to, not tonight. ‘And you know what? We’re all still breathing, kiddo.’ Sam said nothing in reply, but Dean could feel some of the tension in him start to drain out, slow and sure. ‘Which doesn’t mean you’re getting out of target practice, by the way,’ he added. ‘’Cause you were, like, a quarter inch off dead center with that last shot.’

There was a snuffled, huffling sound that might have been a laugh.

‘Seriously. I was embarrassed for you, man.’

Sam thumped him on the chest, and Dean smiled into the dark, and for awhile neither of them spoke, only listened to the wind roaring in the pines outside. Then: ‘I’m gonna keep you safe, like I always do,’ Dean finally said. ‘And we’ll keep Dad safe, you and me, and Dad’ll keep us safe, and nobody’s gonna die except the sons of bitches we’re hunting. You gotta trust me on that, okay?’

Sam was silent for a long while, and then he pushed one foot between both of Dean’s and curled closer against him. ‘Okay,’ he managed.

‘Yeah?’

Sam nodded against his chest, the last of the tension running out of him like water. ‘Yeah,’ he whispered.

Dean pressed a kiss to the top of his brother’s head, which was a totally manly and appropriate thing to do, because the room was really dark, and chick-flick moments weren’t chick-flick moments if you couldn’t see them. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now you need to get some sleep, all right?’

Sam was quiet for maybe all of fifteen seconds. Then: ‘Dean?’

‘Jesus Christ, Sam.’

‘No, it’s just—can . . . can I stay here? Just for tonight? Please?’

‘You see me putting your ass on the floor?’

‘Dad told me I was too old to sleep with—’

‘Yeah, well, Dad’s sleeping. I’d like to be sleeping. You should be sleeping. So.’ He shifted a little to settle his brother more comfortably against him. ‘Can it.’

Dean felt the curve of a smile against his collar bone. ‘Jerk,’ Sam whispered.

‘Bitch,’ Dean replied easily, tipped his head back, and let his eyes slide shut against the dark.

 

He woke again an hour or so before dawn, sleet coming down now outside and the living room too dark to see—there was no light from the bathroom; the power had gone, sometime in the night. Sam was still half on top of him, tucked up close in the strong cradle of his arms. The kid was awake, clearly—he had one hand pushed up under Dean’s shirt, warm fingers spread across his heart—but he seemed content to be lying quietly, tracing idle patterns on his brother’s skin with his thumb. Dean was cramped and he needed to piss, but he was also really warm for the first time in three days, and Sam’s weight and touch were oddly soothing, and he could hear their father snoring, which meant he was still breathing, which meant he was alive, so he was in no great hurry to get up, either. He ruffled his brother’s hair in silent inquiry— _all right?_ — got a gentle headbutt under his chin in response— _fine_ —and let his eyes drift shut to the kettledrum rattle of the sleet overhead. The next time he opened them, the world was a wash of grey instead of black, and on the other side of the wall, their father was stirring. Sam was sound asleep again, his hand still warm on Dean’s chest. Dean tugged lightly on his hair to wake him. They listened together, silently, until the creak of the floorboards closed in on the door, and then Sam was moving, gently, easily, disentangling himself from his brother’s arms and legs, and by the time John came into the sitting room, one hand pressed carefully to his side, Sam was sitting cross-legged in front of the hearth, blowing gently on the tinder as he set it aflame.

 


	2. Two

It was 9:30 and after breakfast before any of them thought to look for a generator. Half an hour later Dean turned on the lights and cranked the heat up to 78 degrees, and Sam spent the rest of the morning curled up on the couch, watching DVDs and eating peaches in syrup, happy as a clam. Early in the afternoon Dean unearthed two metal trashcans behind the cabin, confiscated their lids, grabbed a can of cooking spray from the kitchen, left a note for their father, and hauled his little brother into the woods. John was sitting up at the small kitchen table when they came back six steps ahead of the dark.

‘And where’ve you boys been?’ he asked.

‘Training,’ Dean said blithely, stomping snow off borrowed boots. Sam did not manage to swallow a laugh.

John looked at Sam’s face, flushed and happy, looked back at his older son. ‘Training,’ he said, though Dean could tell he was biting back a smile.

‘Yeah,’ Dean replied, and grinned at him. ‘Never know when you might have to improvise a sled, you know?’


	3. Three

Looking for a bigger pot so he could make Sam oatmeal the following morning, Dean discovered a Table Talk pie tucked neatly in one of the cabinets beneath the counter, only two days past its expiration date.

He and Sam did not have oatmeal for breakfast.

 


	4. Four

Dean woke early on the third morning to the sound of a plow rumbling by. He waited until the sky was lightening a bit, then threw on his clothes and someone else’s boots and went out to start clearing the drive. Sam shuffled out to join him an hour or so later, still flushed from sleep. The snow was a foot and a half deep, and it was thick and it was heavy, but the kid didn’t complain (much), and the two of them worked in companionable silence (mostly) throughout the morning. Dean sent him in twice to warm up and eat something; when he came back the second time with a thermos full of black coffee strong enough to melt iron, Dean knew their father was up.

John had their bags packed and lunch on when they finally came in after noon. Dean pushed Sam into the bathroom for a hot shower before they ate, loaded what their father hadn’t been able to lift into the trunk, tucked a heavy comforter into the front seat for his brother, and put two pillows in the back for John, who was not going to be either driving or riding shotgun anytime this week. It was past three by the time they’d eaten and he’d showered and they were ready to go. They’d washed the sheets and remade the beds, cleaned up the salt and put back the dishes. It was possible Dean had also relocated the rest of the canned peaches from the kitchen to the trunk, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He paused, briefly, as he went to close the door from the kitchen to the garage. Sam, white-knuckled and serious as a priest, was backing the Impala carefully into the driveway; John was leaning up against the wall in the garage, waiting for them both. Dean ducked briefly back inside, rummaged in one of the kitchen drawers for the notebook and pen he’d seen there. Tore out a page, left it in on the kitchen table.

_Stranded during the storm,_ he wrote. _Used some of your stuff. Thanks, and sorry_. He thought for a moment, then added, _Buy a Yale lock for the garage._

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